Not the Time nor the Place
by MrsNoggin
Summary: Crane comes back for Abbie, but how does she know it's really him? And hang on a sec, isn't he supposed to be saving the world or something? Ichabbie one-shot for Clarinetchica. Rated M for sexytimes and language.


_**A.N.** - For Clarinetchica. _

_My half of a challenge exchange. I got - reunion pwpish fic, set in purgatory including the words 'minion, memory and moustache'. Thanks love. Hmm..._

_Unbeta-ed, so hope there's nothing terrible. Drop me a line if there is._

* * *

Abbie wasn't sure how sturdy the door was.

"Lieutenant?" Another barrage of hammering.

Really, the doll's house hadn't seemed all that well made years ago. It couldn't hold out much longer.

"Miss Mills!"

And it was taking a good beating. A resounding thump from a shoulder. A kick at the bottom panel.

"Lieutenant Mills, I know you're in there, you have to let me in!"

It was so tempting. It sounded like him, but it just couldn't be. As much as she wanted him to be here, he was in another world, hopefully saving it, if that was even possible with all the mistakes they had made.

She leant her head on the cool flatness of the smooth-papered wooden wall and wished on all wishes that he would stop. This counterfeit Crane, this imposter Ichabod, Molloch's minion send to torment her.

"Abbie... _Please_?"

Her hand, entirely of its own volition shot out at that and flipped the lock. He never called her Abbie.

The form that slipped in through the door and slammed it behind was perfection in itself. She had been stuck in a circle of thoughts that revolved around never seeing him again. He had his Katrina now, she had given herself up for it all. But this muddy sweaty lankiness was so perfectly familiar she let herself forget that for a moment. His chest was heaving, his face scratched, his eyes glinting with some dark kind of desperation as he drank in the sight of her.

"Crane. What the hell?"

"Abbie." His arms were like heaven, steel bands of life wrapped around her, squeezing her arms down to her sides. He smelled of earth, fresh and damp.

"How do I know it's you?" Though as she said it, she even wondered if she cared.

"I suppose fist bumps are obsolete now?" He murmured into her hair. His voice, she had missed it so much.

"I guess." Of course he was right.

"How about... How about I tell you the story of when you so kindly loaned me the use of your mobile telecommunications device and I took the most delightful picture of myself gorging on melted cheese and fried egg on toast and succeeded in sending it to every single person in your contacts list? Would that satisfy?"

Abbie grinned into the shoulder of his coat, "Yeah, that's a good story." Then she frowned, pulling away, "But how are you here? Why are you here? What happened?"

"It went wrong. It all went wrong. I did it wrong." He rambled sadly, urgently, "I made the wrong decisions over and over and over again and everything went catastrophically wrong."

"Crane," she couldn't stop herself reaching out to cup his bristly cheek, "We'll sort it out. It's not just you. It never was. _Two_ witnesses, remember, two fates intertwined, two idiots making decisions."

He looked down at her, in a way she had seen before but never quite figured out. But whereas in her memory his eyes twinkled in amusement or... appreciation with this expression, now they just looked lost. "Abbie."

She thought she understood, a little. "I'm here. We'll sort this out."

"I thought you'd gone. I thought I'd lost you. I thought –"

She kissed him then, rose up on her toes, yanked him down by his lapels and crushed their lips together. She wasn't sure why, it just seemed like the right thing to do. When she had spent those hours staring the dolls' kitchen table, thinking she'd never see him again, one of the things that wouldn't leave her alone was the fact that she had never got the guts up to do this, yet this is what her guts had wanted for so very long. What all of her had wanted in fact.

He made an '_oomph_' of surprise into her mouth, but then his hands were on her hips and his jaw moving with hers and _Oh God_, why had they never done this before? Abbie's heart dropped somewhere into the pit of her belly, taking her stomach with it. He was delicious; cold lips, warm tongue, nose tip on her cheek. She grasped at the back of his neck, trying to get closer, pushing up against him. He took her in, took her all in, wrapped her in the length of his arms and pressed their bodies together. They staggered together for a moment until Abbie's back found the wall. The kiss went on, evolving and growing and then, _Jesus_, his hands were under her ass, pulling her up, encouraging her to climb him. His grip spanned her buttocks easily, clutching and supporting in equals parts.

"God, Abbie," he breathed into the hollow beneath her jaw.

His hair was like silk in her hands. She loosened and dropped the leather tie and let it slink over her fingers. It fell down around his face, tickling at her neck, soothing the scrape of his beard and moustache across her skin. She couldn't help wondering what the hell they were doing. What exactly could come of this? And then he twisted the angle of his hips and lifted her a couple of inches higher and she knew exactly what could come of this.

Crane's arousal was clear as he leaned against her. She crooked her arms around his shoulders and levered herself a teensy bit to the right and then, yes, the firm curve of his imprisoned erection was pressing in just the right place.

"Yesss," Abbie hissed into his ear and dug her heels into his thighs. He got the idea and ground into her. And wow, he felt good. So very good. It had been a while, but she got the feeling that wouldn't have made any difference, he would have felt good anytime.

Crane was panting when he brought his mouth back to hers. The hot puff of his breath was more than arousing in her mouth and she bit at his lips desperately as their hips were grinding together.

"This is really not the time nor the place," he said, but he was already lowering her fully to the floor.

She hit the floorboards a bit harder than intended, and that would leave a bruise on her butt, but she was a bit beyond caring at that moment. Instead of worrying she was tugging his shirt from those ridiculous trousers and sliding her palms up the smooth warm skin of his back. He was above her, on top of her, all around her as he skimmed her top up and sucked his way up her ribcage. If Abbie was expecting several grumbled comments about the damned infernal contraption of her underwired lingerie she was disappointed. Or not really. In fact, he just capably flicked it upwards with one hand and then his mouth was on her breast. He trapped an almost painfully erect nipple between his lips, scraped it between the ridge of his teeth and his hot wet tongue and Abbie was practically wailing as she bucked up to him, catching his taut thigh between hers and rubbing herself against it.

While she was distracted with tracing the bunching muscles on his back and what his mouth was doing to her nipples, he had apparently mastered the button and fly on her jeans because she almost jumped at the feeling of his chilled fingers slipping down her belly and under the lace edge of her panties. Oh God, those hands, they were long and agile and she could spend hours entertaining herself with those.

"Crane," she groaned, though it was total encouragement and nothing else. To reiterate her point she opened her legs further, as though that might help him conquer the restrictions of her tight jeans. Damn things, maybe he had been right about them all along.

"I'm not entirely sure how we are going to go about this," he said to her left breast, sliding his fingers down through her now slick pubic hair and finding the wet heat of her. "Oh. _Oh_."

She didn't care. She didn't care about anything, not the hard floor at her back, or the creepiness outside the door, or the end of the damn world, she only cared about those beautiful fingers slipping between her swollen lips and finding the very core of her. She was so very hot and so very wet for him, almost aching with the need for something inside of her, so she tipped her pelvis, the compression of her jeans keeping his wrist in place while she steered his touch further back. He looked up at her, arching an eyebrow and flashing a quick grin before giving her exactly what she wanted. She felt her muscles clench at him as he slid a digit inside.

"Ahh," it was Crane that made the noise.

Abbie's hands flew to the fastenings on his trousers, fumbling over the buttons. He completely was _not_ helping, stroking inside her and rubbing his erection against her hip. Crane kissed her again, licked at her teeth and slid another finger slickly inside her.

"Oh, yes," she breathed into his mouth and finally got enough space under his waistband to get her hand in and wrap it around his cock, rock hard and pulsing into her palm.

"Yes, I suppose this would be a good way to go about it," he chuckled darkly.

Her jeans had worked their way far enough down to give him a bit of wriggling room and he managed to twist his wrist so that he could get the flat of his thumb on the nub of her clit and he gave it an experimental circular caress as his fingers thrust inside her.

"Uh-huh," she grunted. Perfect. And while, perhaps, this wasn't _exactly_ how she wanted him, it would do for now. After all, if the world was about to end, she'd rather they'd had a bit of a chance to get this done first.

Crane moaned into her throat as she squeezed her hand around him, working her hand along the length of him as best she could in his trousers. She swept her thumb around the head of his prick, revelling in the broken noise that he pushed out.

They built up a stuttered kind of rhythm, matching the thrusting of hands and tongues until Abbie could feel a familiar coiling heat building up in her belly.

"Crane..." she sucked onto his lower lip, plump with kisses. She felt the pitch of her voice rise, "Oh, God, Crane, yes."

He crooked his fingers just so and the hot pressure took on a whole new sensation, skittering shivers down her spine. She squeezed him, maybe a bit too hard, arching up into his chest and crushing her breasts into the front of his shirt.

"Beautiful," he murmured, maintaining the tempo he had perfected as he curled his fingertips onto her g-spot. His hips joined in again, helping her faltering hand. "Come for me Abbie, bring yourself to completion with my hand."

Well, wasn't he just delicious? That voice, those words. If they ever got out of this alive she might have to have him talk to her while she touched herself. Because really, it was fucking lovely. He had his lips beside her ear, grazing the skin as he panted and whispered while she tensed and chased her orgasm.

Abbie didn't just come, she _exploded_. There was no hiding the convulsions, the ripples of pleasure crippling her muscles as she writhed up against him. He froze, bless him, letting her ride it out and use his hand as she needed.

"Crane!" She was practically singing his name, her eyes scrunched shut.

He had to take over; she was in no state to do anything except lie nicely in the buzz of her aftershocks. She kissed him limply as he shoved his own hand down the front of his trousers and jerked himself off roughly. When he came, he growled out her name, his eyes forced open and fixed on her as he shuddered. And it was so damn hot she was ready to go all over again.

There was no mess, at least on the outside of his clothes, and it should have been a simple matter of doing up fastenings and straightening shirts, but they couldn't seem to manage it. Not without messy kisses and groaning swallows and a whole debacle over realigning her bra with the correct parts of her breasts. Crane was far too distractible and rather distracting himself too.

"Well," he smiled and adjusted himself inside his, what must now be incredibly uncomfortable, underwear, "Now we've, erm, got that done and, uh, out of the way, maybe we should..."

He gestured sheepishly towards the door.

Abbie nodded, "Save the world?"


End file.
